TEDxUIWomen

Come be part of history as TEDxUI hosts it’s first edition of TEDxWomen tagged “TEDxUIWomen”.

TEDxUIWomen is a one day event about the power of women who are creators and change makers. TEDxWomen brings together a global community of people interested in exploring how change begins and with innovative thinkers who catalyze ideas towards action.

TEDxUIWomen is modeled inline with TEDxWomen. The program will feature two sessions. The first session will be a life streaming of the event as it goes on in New Orleans, Lousiana, USA after which our own speakers will take to the stage.

To be part of the history breaking event, make sure you apply for seat reservations through the link here

Note: Due to limited seating and high demand, TEDx conferences sell out very quick.

Who are speaking?

AYO SHITTU

Business Lawyer, Advisor and Enterpreneur

Ayo Shittu is a Business Lawyer, Advisor and an Entrepreneur. Until recently, she practiced bankruptcy litigation at Thompson & Knight, LLP before deciding to spend more time in Nigeria working with business owners, and University students on job readiness skills. She currently splits her time between Houston, TX and Lagos for her business, Aso Ebi City, a diaspora-focused business focused on bringing Nigerian wedding traditions into the 21st century. She is passionate about youth capacity development, travel in and out of the African continent and connecting the African Diaspora.

ADEPEJU JAIYEOBA

Founder, Mother’s Delivery Kit and African Women Mentoring Network

Adepeju Jaiyeoba is the founder Mother’s Delivery Kit as well as the Founder of the African Women Mentoring Network, which offers tangible resource, support and advice to young women across the African continent. She also founded Brown Button Foundation, an NGO working to improve the face of healthcare delivery in rural communities.

Adepeju has experience across Law, civic leadership, policy formulation and legislative drafting, as well as youth engagement. Specifically, her work focuses on doing business in Africa and was in fact honored by the then United States President, Barack Obama. She was hosted at the White House, Washington for her effort.

She has spoken at a number of events addressing high level audiences including Presidents of countries and stakeholders. She is a two time speaker at the United Nations Foundation Social Good Summit, has addressed the United States Congress Black Caucus group to help the current US administration draw priority focus areas in Africa, and served on several panels discussing issues across, youths, women, innovation, policy formation and business in Africa.

DR KADIRI KEHINDE KADIJAT

Skilled Humanitarian Photographer

Aside being a passionately skilled humanitarian photographer, Dr Kadiri Kehinde Kadijat is an accomplished Academia and a seasoned Scholar and teacher of Mass Communication who has found deep passion for health communication, humanitarianism and photography.

A picture they say tells a thousand words and if anyone was to give a proper definition to those thoughts, then Dr Kadiri’s feet suits the shoes better. To her photography is like every form of art that can be used to ventilate thoughts and emotions to the outside world. She believes photography can be used to set world agenda and enlighten people on how to make the world a better place. These thoughts led her to the documenting of lives of people in rural communities within Kwara State through photographs on her various social media handles such as Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. Kadiri documents on both the mundane and imperative issues in the rural communities she visited. These photographs endeared her to many of her followers who were curious to know the stories behind the pictures. In one of the instances, one of her followers decided to pay up the school fees of a school girl who had been sent out of school.

In another instance, Dr Kadiri had taken and uploaded pictures depicting the water problem facing the people in Ago-Oja community deep in the heart of Kwara State. This caught the attention of a follower who donated a manual bore-hole to the community. Similarly, another set of pictures depicting children wearing torn and dirty clothes made another follower to send few bags of good clothes to her. She later got more clothes from family and friends to add up to the ones earlier sent. The clothes were shared not only to children but also adults in the same community. Dr. Kadiri did not end it there, she organised a malaria campaign in the community in which a seasoned health practitioner spoke on malaria and its antecedents, mosquito nets as well as malaria repellent creams were distributed to the people. Malaria test was conducted for the inhabitants of the community and drugs shared to those who tested positive to malaria.

Recently, Dr. Kadiri conducted a crowd funded campaign that led to the building and furnishing of a one bedroom flat for a 100-year-old woman popularly called Mama Ikirun who was living in a dilapidated muddy home.

As a result of this humanitarian activities, Kadiri has set up an NGO, The Health Builders Initiative (THBI), which is still in the process of being incorporated by the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC). THBI’s humanitarian projects are not a flash in the pan as the young NGO though in its infancy is positioned towards embarking on more humanitarian projects in future.

Kadiri, who had her first degree in Mass Communication at the prestigious University of Lagos and a second degree in Communication Studies at the University of Ghana, Legon before proceeding to Universiti Utara Malaysia for her PhD in Communication is a lecturer at the Department of Mass Communication, University of Ilorin, Ilorin, Kwara State. She is a member of Nigeria Institute of Public Relation and Advertising Practitioner Council of Nigeria.

CHINEMENMA UMESEAKA

Founder, 9ineteen Works

Chinemenma Umeseaka fondly called Chichi or Aunty Chichi by her teenagers is the foremost Teenage Coach in Nigeria. She’s a 33 year old wife and mother of four children. She’s been married for 12 years and counting. Chichi is a Teenage Coach and through her initiative “9ineteen Works”, has reached out to lots of teens in Lagos State, Abia State, Bayelsa, Abuja, and so many others.

Aunty Chichi is a Journalist by training; she’s a graduate of Mass Communication from Abia State University, Uturu. She graduated from the University in 2005, at the age of 21. She also got Certificate for Entrepreneurial Management (CEM) from Enterprise Development Centre (EDC) an arm of Lagos Business School, Pan Atlantic University. And she got this certification as a scholarship from Goldman Sachs (an International Bank). She is a certified Teenage Coach and Counselor. She has carved a niche for herself on teen/youth mentoring.

She is the Special Adviser to the Abia State Governor on Teenage Matters; an On Air Personality (OAP) on 92.3 Inspiration FM, Lagos, 94.9 Flo FM, Umuahia; TV show Host on African Independent Television (AIT) International; currently running on its second season every Saturday 10am; Inspirational speaker; magazine Publisher (9ineteen Magazine); People Builder and a Social Entrepreneur.

Aunty Chichi is a highly sort after speaker in different teenage Churches. She’s the Teenage Church Leader of Streams of Joy International Church, Umuahia. She has spoken in different Redeem Church Provinces, TREM, SALEM, Foursquare and Anglican churches, to mention a few. She has spoken in different private and government secondary schools, in Universities, different youth organizations, different Religious organizations, etc.

9ineteen Works, through Aunty Chichi has been in partnership with the Ministry of Education Lagos State and Abia State since 2013. She has access to over 3000 Junior and Senior Secondary Schools under the six Education districts in Lagos with over 20,000 students.

Apart from being a busy Mom, and with her hands full with coaching her teenagers, she runs her own businesses as well. Her major business is her cleaning business (Whyte Vine Cleaners), through this she partnered with some IT programmers to develop an app called ‘HelpOga’. This is to help people find cleaners online.

Aunty Chichi has reached out to over 400,000 teenagers and parents through her different teenage platforms. She is very passionate about teenagers and young adults, their wellbeing and direction in life.

Chichi’s vision is to nurture teens to excellence in outlook and strength in character. She uses the media to inform, educate, inspire, entertain and promote teenagers. She is huge on education, as her Enterprise donated over 10,000 books and dictionaries to Abia state in March, 2016.

She and her teenagers raised over 1000 text books, motivational books, dictionaries and exercise books individually and from ‘Pearson’s Education UK’ and opened community library for Makoko community in Lagos in 2015. She’s raised over 2000 sanitary pads for poor teenage girls in 2015 too. She raised underwear from BYC to donate to some of her under privileged teenagers. She organized 35 teenagers to work with LAWMA to help clean our environment; they swept the whole of Ozumba Mbadiwe/ Law School axis in Victoria Island, Lagos. She has reconciled parents with their teens a number of times. These and many more are some of the things she’s achieved with her initiative.

You can reach her via email chichiteens@yahoo.com and also listen to her on radio, every Saturday, at 10am on 92.3 Inspiration FM, 4:05pm on 94.9 Flo FM or watch her on AIT International every Saturday, at 10am.

DR OLA OREKUNRIN

Founder, Flying Doctors Nigeria

Dr Ola Orekunin is a medical doctor, a trainee helicopter pilot and an entrepreneur who founded West Africa’s first indigenous air ambulance service, The Flying Doctors Nigeria which saves hundreds of lives across the region every year.

She is extremely passionate about healthcare/entrepreneurship in Africa and works with various foundations, charities and governments to improve standards of healthcare.

Dr Ola was born and raised in the UK. She studied medicine and surgery at the Hull-York Medical School after which she worked in Acute Medicine across the UK. She then went on to be awarded the Japanese MEXT scholarship which allowed her to further her studies in Tokyo, Japan.

She has published two medical textbooks ‘EMQ’s in Paediatrics’ and ‘Pre-Hospital Care For Africa’ as well as articles in the British Medical Journal, New York Times and the Huffington Post.

She returned to Nigeria to start the air ambulance service which uses a pool of aircrafts and doctors to save lives across West Africa.

She is an international speaker who has received multiple awards and nominations. These include the Mouldbreaker’s Award, the THIS Day Award, The Future Award as ‘Entrepreneur of the Year’, New Generation Leader for Africa, Ladybrille ‘Personality of the Month’, and Vanguard WOW Awards. She is also a TED fellow and has been honoured by the world economic forum as a Young Global Leader.

She is a member of the American College of Emergency Physicians and an editor of the Journal of Emergency medical services.

She is a board member of & investor in tech-focused angel investment fund, Greentree Investment Company.

CYNTHIA MENE

CEO, I Inspire Africa

Cynthia Mene is a serial social entrepreneur. Her ambitious start-up record includes “Ever Glow”, a successful liquid soap company that filled the niche for a non-toxic, plant-derived and biodegradable dish soap in Nigeria, Kadosh Production Company (KPC), a cassava processing plant that has the potential to revolutionize, the cassava industry in Nigeria by yielding about 30 per cent more food per unit for human consumption, while improving the livelihood of women farmers through processing and packaging of cassava finished products. Her third venture recently started in 2016, known as Inspire Africa, a Pan-African Institution established to deliver high impact entrepreneurship and leadership education to African youths. Cynthia has a Bachelor’s Degree in Textile Science and Polymer Technology at Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria and has received certificate of participation for Business and Entrepreneurship course at Dartmouth College, New Hampshire USA. She has received awards and accolades from an impressive list of international organizations, including her recognition as a Mandela Washington Fellow for Young African Leaders, United State African Development Funds Award, Unilever Sustainable Living Young Entrepreneurs Award, LEAP Africa (Social Innovators Programme), Global Student Entrepreneurs Award, Innovation Prize for Africans Post prize Awards, Global Innovation through Science and Technology Awards, speaker at the Global Forum for Innovation in Africa, Global Entrepreneurship summit, Women In Africa Summit and a Global Good Fund Fellow. Cynthia is also a member of the John Maxwell Team and a certified speaker, trainer and coach of the John Maxwell Program.